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ITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION 

SPECIAL PUBLICATION WHOLE NUMBER 501 



AN EXPLANATORY STATEMENT 

IN REGARD TO 

"A CLASSIFICATION OF UNIVERSITIES 

AND COLLEGES WITH REFERENCE TO 

BACHELOR'S DEGREES" 



BY 
P. P. CLAXTON 

COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 







WASHINGTON 
1912 



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nograpn 




NO' 312 






AN EXPLANATORY STATEMENT IN REGARD TO 
"A CLASSIFICATION OF UNIVERSITIES AND COL- 
LEGES WITH REFERENCE TO BACHELOR'S DE- 
GREES." 

According to returns made to the United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion for the year 1910-11, there were in that year in the universities 
and technological schools of this country 10,858 students doing 
graduate work. Of these, 8,369, or 77 per cent, were enrolled in 25 
institutions, and 9 other institutions enrolled 539, or 5 per cent of 
the total. Thus 82 per cent of all the graduate students in the 
country were enrolled in 34 institutions, and only 18 per cent in 
the remaining 568 institutions reporting to this bureau. The 
number of graduate students is rapidly increasing. And since the 
cost of equipment and teaching force for effective graduate work is 
comparatively very great, the concentration of work of this kind in 
a few of the richer institutions will doubtless increase rapidly from 
year to year. In the same year several thousand other students were 
enrolled in the professional schools whose standards of admission 
require the bachelor's degree from a standard college, or the comple- 
tion of some definite portion of the work required for graduation in 
the same. These thousands of graduate students and students with 
advanced standing in academic and professional schools come from 
four or five hundred colleges, old and new, large and small, public 
and private, rich and poor, in all parts of the country and with 
standards varying as widely as the conditions under which they 
work and the needs of the people they serve. 

The deans and other responsible officers of the graduate and pro- 
fessional schools naturally wish to deal justly with the large num- 
bers of students applying annually for admission, and at the same 
time to maintain their own standards. But, from the very nature of 
the case, they can not examine students applying for admission as a 
child is examined for admission to a grade in an elementary school, 
nor can any one officer hope to know accurately the character of 
work done in each of the hundred or more colleges and schools from 
which men and women come seeking admission as graduate students 
to work for advanced academic or professional degrees. The few 
colleges from which students come to his institution in considerable 

63241—12 3 



4 

numbers several years in succession he may soon know sufficiently 
well to enable him to evaluate their work with some degree of accu- 
racy and to deal with their graduates intelligently and for the best 
interests both of the students and of the institution which he repre- 
sents and for the maintenance of whose standards he is responsible. 
For an evaluation of the work of other colleges from which students 
come intermittently and in small numbers, he must depend on 
officers in schools to which more of their graduate students go, or on 
the judgment of disinterested persons more or less intimately ac- 
quainted with their work and standards. To the extent that such 
judgment is affected by the personal equation or is based on super- 
ficial or inadequate knowledge, it must of course be unsatisfactory. 
For these and other reasons, the deans of most of the larger graduate 
and professional schools have for several years held annual conferences, 
largely for the purpose of comparing notes and trying to arrive at 
some just conclusion as to the status to be given graduates of each of 
the several colleges from which graduate students come to their in- 
stitutions in any considerable numbers. 

Anyone at all familiar with this problem must understand its 
importance, and it is easy to see that important economies of colleges 
and of graduate and professional schools alike, as well as vital inter- 
ests of the students, depend on its solution. For any adequate 
solution there is need of some accurate information in regard to the 
equipment, work, and standards of the colleges, just as the colleges 
themselves desire, need, and obtain information in regard to the 
equipment, work, and standards of the high schools and preparatory 
schools from which they draw their students. 

At the conference of deans of the larger graduate and professional 
schools held at the University of Virginia in 1910 this question came 
up for special consideration, and it was decided to undertake to 
collect such definite information about all colleges sending consid- 
erable numbers of students on for advanced work as would enable the 
responsible officers of the graduate and professional schools to deal 
intelligently and justly with their students and at the same time 
protect themselves against the false representations sometimes made 
by students in regard to standing offered them in other graduate and 
professional schools. 

Two methods of arriving at the desired results were possible: To 
appoint a committee of their own number to undertake the work, or 
to obtain the services of some competent and disinterested outside 
persons or agency. The first course was open to the objection that 
the judgment of any committee composed of deans or other officers 
of graduate and professional schools might be suspected of being 
influenced too much by the experiences and practices of the particular 
institutions from which they might be chosen. An appeal was there- 



fore made to the United States Bureau of Education to undertake 
this work, in the belief that it could be done here more accurately 
and more acceptably than anywhere else. Dr. Brown, at that time 
Commissioner of Education, recognized the magnitude and difficulty 
of the task, but he also foresaw the good results that must come from 
having it well done. Therefore, after careful consideration, he 
agreed to have the work done by this bureau and assigned it to Dr. 
Kendric C. Babcock, who had recently come to the bureau as spe- 
cialist in higher education. It was easily apparent that this work 
would require much time, skill, and patience, and that it must reach 
even a tentative conclusion through several stages following upon one 
another at rather long intervals. It was hoped, however, that the 
work might be allowed to proceed without undue exploitation of the 
earlier and necessarily imperfect results. 

The enormous task of visiting and examining all the colleges con- 
cerned was clearly out of question. It could not be done in any rea- 
sonable time. Evidently, therefore, the first step was to find as 
nearly as possible the common or average practice of the graduate 
and professional schools in dealing with students coming from each 
of the more important colleges and to correct this by a careful study 
of the experiences of each of the larger graduate and professional 
schools with students coming from colleges within its own particular 
sphere and of whose work and standards its officers might well be 
supposed to have more accurate knowledge than the officers of other 
institutions could have. Each large graduate or professional school 
has such a sphere, which includes a larger or smaller group of col- 
leges the majority of whose students desiring to do advanced work 
come to it. Its officers therefore are soon possessed of knowledge 
about these colleges which can not fail to be helpful to the officers of 
all other graduate or professional schools at which any of the stu- 
dents of these colleges seek admission. 

By finding an$ making known to each of the graduate and pro- 
fessional schools the average practice of all, and to all the more in- 
telligent practice of each in regard to the students of colleges in its 
own immediate and particular sphere, it was hoped that at least the 
most obvious errors in dealing with advanced and graduate students 
might be eliminated. This Dr. Babcock undertook to do. He visited 
as many of the graduate and professional schools as he could, con- 
sulted their deans and other responsible officers and examined their 
records of students. The information thus gained he supplemented 
by consulting the executive officers of all or most of the large edu- 
cational boards in regard to the institutions of learning best known 
to them, by conference with State officers and by interviews with 
presidents and deans of State universities as to their experience with 
graduate students coming to them from other colleges in their re- 



(> 

spective States. Reliance was also placed upon the somewhat full 
and accurate information which this bureau has of many of the 
colleges in all parts of the country, some of which have made marked 
improvement in standards and work so recently that these improve- 
ments have not yet been fully recognized even by the graduate and 
professional schools with which they have the closest relations. With 
a later stage of the work in mind, Dr. Babcock visited as many colleges 
as he could conveniently in connection with the performance of other 
duties, but none of these was examined with the purpose of making 
a personal and final evaluation of its work as a whole. 

After 10 months of careful investigation of the kind above indi- 
cated, Dr. Babcock made a tentative grouping of 344 colleges, only a 
little more than half the number reporting to this bureau, but a much 
larger proportion of those sending graduates on for advanced work. 
The list was confessedly incomplete and the grouping only tentative. 

" Institutions whose graduates would," according to his findings, 
" ordinarily be able to take the master's degree at any of the large 
graduate schools in one year after receiving the bachelor's degree, 
without necessarily doing more than the amount of work regularly 
prescribed for such higher degree," were listed in the first group, 
which contained the names of 59 colleges. 

"Institutions whose graduates would probably require for the 
master's degree in one of the strong graduate schools somewhat more 
than one year's regular graduate work * * * a differential which 
might be represented by one or two extra year courses, by one or more 
summer school sessions, or by a fourth or fifth quarter " were placed 
in the second group, which contained the names of 161 colleges. " In 
accordance with the practice of some graduate schools " Dr. Babcock 
found " a brilliant student with a brilliant record from the strong 
institutions in this class might be admitted probationally to regular 
candidacy, and if he gave satisfactory evidence of his ability to do 
the prescribed work during the first term or semester he might be 
given an individual rerating in the middle of the year and be granted 
the higher degree on the completion of the regular minimum amount 
of work." The colleges in this list to which this practice seemed to 
apply were starred. Of these there were 44. This gives a total of 
103 colleges whose better students may, according to this finding, hope 
to make the master's degree in $ne year without doing more than the 
usual amount of work, and leaves 117 whose students must to obtain 
this degree expect to do something more than the minimum amount 
of work required. 

" Institutions whose standards of admission and graduation are 
so low, or so uncertain, or so loosely administered as to make the 
requirement of two years for the master's degree probable " were 
placed in the third class, which contained the names of 84 colleges. 



" Institutions whose bachelor's degree would be approximately two 
years short of equivalency of the standard bachelor's degree of a 
standard college " were placed in the fourth group, which contained 
the names of 40 colleges. A " standard college " was interpreted as 
being " one requiring the usual four years of high-school work or at 
least 14 units for admission and four years of well- distributed college 
work for graduation, in charge of a competent faculty of not less 
than six persons giving their whole time to college work." 

" The rating of institutions in this classification is based upon the 
course which might be followed by an ambitious student proceeding 
under normal conditions: (1) An earnest student of good ability and 
health who has complied with the requirements for a bachelor's 
degree in a standard college. (2) Whose work includes a solid 
foundation for the courses which he desires to take for the advanced 
degree. (3) Who enters upon graduate work, within a year or two 
after taking his bachelor's degree without intervening special study 
and without such advantages as might arise from teaching subjects 
of a special nature in high school or college, thereby making up in 
some part deficiencies in his college preparation for graduate work." 

It is " assumed that the line of study pursued for the higher degree 
is closely allied to the work done as an undergraduate and not widely 
divergent, as would be the case for a graduate from a classical course 
desiring to take a master's degree in forestry " or civil engineering. 

The tentative grouping made on this basis Dr. Babcock submitted 
to me for my inspection and approval. It seemed to be as accurate as 
could be made without the careful criticism of the officers of the 
graduate and professional schools on whose judgment and practice 
it was largely based. Since it would be easier for them to review it 
if presented in the form of a printed pamphlet rather than on multi- 
graph sheets, as was at first suggested, I requested that it be printed 
and treated as a proof sheet until it might be revised in the light of 
their criticism. This was done, and 200 copies were delivered to the 
Bureau of Education, practically all of which were sent to the deans 
of the larger graduate and professional schools in the hope that their 
" frank and thoroughgoing criticism " might assist the bureau in its 
preparation of a larger and more correct list later. Through an 
an oversight the pamphlet was not marked "Proof — Confidential" 
as it should have been, and before the error was discovered the 
superintendent of documents had received copies of it for distribution 
to the depository libraries and for sale. This explains why the 
pamphlet does not have any serial number on it, nor any statement 
that it is a document of the United States Bureau of Education. 
The Bureau of Education does nothing which it wishes to conceal, 
but its work, like any other work, can not fairly be considered as 
complete when it has only been begun, and even a cursory reading 



cS 

oi this tentative statement could not fail to reveal the fact that it 
was not intended for general publication, and that any such use of it 
was not expected. 

It seems also to have been unfortunate that the groups of colleges 
referred to above were designated as " Class 1," " Class 2," " Class 3," 
and "Class 4," and that the word "classification" appeared on the 
title-page, since these facts have given offense to some who have 
doubtlessly not read the full and specific statement that the classifi- 
cation is "with reference to bachelor's degrees" only, on the basis, 
and for the purpose, and from the information set forth above, and 
only tentative. 

No attempt was made to classify colleges on the basis of their 
worth and merits as educational institutions founded and maintained 
to serve their constituencies according to their needs and conditions, 
nor did it have any intention of announcing " a judgment day for 
our colleges," or doing anything more than that which is clearly 
stated above. I know many colleges listed in the second, third, or 
fourth group which are serving their constituencies much better 
than the} 7 could if, in disregard of needs, conditions, and demands, 
they should raise their requirements for admission and graduation 
so as to put them into a higher group of this classification, made on 
the narrow basis of the rating of their bachelor's degrees as recorded 
at the graduate and professional schools. Neither can the place of 
any institution in this tentative group be legitimately used for ad- 
vertising purposes unless accompanied by a clear statement of the 
purpose, method, and basis of the grouping and the statement that 
it is only tentative and confessedly imperfect. 

What further has been done? What is the further intention of 
the Bureau of Education in this work? Briefly, as follows: 

The generous criticisms and continued investigations of a year 
have indicated the desirability of making the grouping in a some- 
what different form and the change of about a dozen colleges to an- 
other group from that in which they were first placed. A revision 
of the original statement embodying these changes has been made 
and the galley proofs of it have been sent to the officers of the gradu- 
ate and professional schools for further criticism. When these have 
been returned a revised statement, which will then show as clearly 
as possible, not the independent judgment of the Bureau of Educa- 
tion or of any of its employees, but mainly the practice of the gradu- 
ate and professional schools in dealing with students holding the 
bachelor's degree from any of the several colleges listed and present- 
ing themselves for professional or advanced work, will be issued as 
a confidential proof sheet and sent to the officers of the graduate and 
professional schools for such assistance as it can give them in this 
still imperfect and tentative stage, and to the presidents of the col- 



9 

leges listed for their information as to how these colleges are rated 
at the graduate and professional schools to which their students go 
for advanced work, and also for the frank criticism of these presi- 
dents and of the members of the faculties of their colleges. To have 
sent to these presidents or to the public press the first tentative state- 
ment before it could be corrected so as to show more accurately the 
practice of the graduate and professional schools would have been 
premature and unfair to graduate schools and colleges alike. 

No doubt it will be discovered, when this revised statement comes 
into the hands of the presidents of the colleges listed in it, that the 
work and standards of many of them have not been correctly evalu- 
ated, and that there has been danger, at least, that their graduates 
would not be given the exact amount of credit they should receive 
when presenting themselves for advanced work. That there has 
been such danger is well known, and this knowledge constituted the 
principal reason for undertaking this difficult and important task. 

Upon request from the proper authorities of any college which 
seems to be rated too low or too high, the bureau will gladly under- 
take an examination of equipment, requirements, standards, and work 
and assist in any other way it can toward having the rating cor- 
rected, and it will issue new revisions of these proof sheets as often 
as may seem desirable. The number of men in the bureau who can 
give their time to this work is not sufficient to carry it forward as 
rapidly as we and all concerned would like, but possibly a way may 
be found by which competent assistance may be had, and no great 
harm can come from a reasonable delay if those interested will only 
take the trouble to inform themselves fully as to the nature and pur- 
pose of the work and then give such assistance as they can in carrying 
it forward. A delay of a few months, or a few years even, in the 
accomplishment of a task of this kind and magnitude is not so im- 
portant as that it may finally be done honestly, faithfully, and in- 
telligently. 

There can be little doubt, on the other hand, that some colleges 
will find they have defects of which they have not been aware. The 
frank, but unbiased, criticism from the outside, which should be 
welcomed by all educational institutions, may reveal defects and 
weaknesses in equipment, requirements for admission, standards of 
graduation, organization, and teaching not realized by those charged 
with their government and conduct. Many of these will ask, as 
some have already done, that the bureau send some competent person 
to examine them thoroughly in the light of his broader knowledge 
of similar institutions in all parts of the country, point out frankly 
their particular defects, and offer such advice as he can for their im- 
provement. The bureau will always respond to such a request to the 
extent of its ability, or perhaps expert and disinterested advice may 



10 

be obtained from other sources. In this way many colleges may 
easily be brought up to the desired standard, which their officers and 
supporters, in the fullness of love and zeal, supposed they had already 
attained. 

Some colleges will say, no doubt, as they should, that they are less 
concerned about the standing of their few graduates who go else- 
where for advanced work than about meeting the obligations placed 
upon them by the needs of the people they serve or the educational 
conditions of the States or sections in which they are located. They 
will rightty choose rather to serve the purposes for which they were 
founded and are maintained, with low standards of admission and 
graduation, than to prove recreant to their trust by attempting to 
raise these standards prematurely. They will either ask to be re- 
moved from the list because of their disregard of all standards or 
to be retained because of their honest desire to have their standards 
and purposes known as they are. 

Finally, it will be possible to publish to the world a statement of 
the standing of colleges in respect to the value of their bachelor's 
degrees, which will for the time be approximately complete and cor- 
rect. No such statement can ever be final. It will need careful re- 
vision from year to year as new colleges come into existence and old 
ones go out of existence or change their standards through growth or 
decay. Such revision will, however, not be so difficult after an ap- 
proximately correct statement of the standing of existing colleges has 
once been made. 

Why should the Bureau of Education have undertaken this task, 
and having begun it, why continue it? What adequate results are to 
be expected? These questions have been partially answered already. 

For one thing, when the work has been completed to the extent 
indicated above, or to a lesser degree even, there will no longer be 
the danger which now exists of unjust treatment of students from 
one college applying for admission for graduate or advanced work in 
another. It must be recognized and admitted that some of this 
danger arises from the natural tendency to overestimate the work of 
old, large, and wealthy institutions as compared with that of those 
which are younger, smaller, or less wealthy. Only a few days ago I 
was told of a student who, having received a bachelor's degree from 
a college well known and much honored in its section, applied for 
admission as a graduate student working for the master's degree in a 
university in another section, with the expectation of being able to 
do the work required in one year, or in two at most. This student, 
however, was informed that before she could be admitted to graduate 
work she would have to do two years' work for the bachelor's degree 
of that institution. I know both of these institutions and believe 
the average graduate of the first should be admitted to higher stand- 



11 

ing at the second than was granted this young woman, and that Its 
standard and work are higher and better than the authorities of the 
second institution seem to think. If they are not, then the authori- 
ties of the first institution, its faculty and students, the people who 
support it, and the State it serves should know it. 

Many colleges whose standards are low and whose work is not so 
good as it might be will, when they have become conscious of their 
defects, take delight in remedying them, and their supporters will 
find equal pleasure in providing the necessary funds to enable them 
to do better work and to attain the standards to which they, in their 
affection and pride, imagined they had already attained. With this 
raising of standards of the colleges there will come a general improve- 
ment in all the schools from which they draw students and the possi- 
bility of a better and a more thorough work in all the universities 
and professional schools to which they send their graduates. 

Sooner or later, let us hope soon, colleges whose equipment, endow- 
ment, income, purpose, or constituency will not permit them to 
do more than two years of college work will frankly acknowledge it, 
deal honestly with themselves, their students, and the people who 
contribute to their support, cease to give for two years of college 
work degrees that are generally understood to be given only as a 
reward of four years of such work, or to spend unwisely the larger 
part of their income on a very few students in the higher classes to 
the neglect of much larger numbers in the lower classes, face their 
conditions and tasks frankly and do thoroughly and well the work 
they can and should do without undue temptation to deceive them- 
selves, their students, those who contribute to their support, or the 
general public. 

It will, I believe, also be possible, without increasing the danger 
of a deadening, mechanical uniformity, to so standardize the work 
of all our colleges that a year's work in any course at any college 
will mean practically the same as a year's work in the same course 
at any other college, and that students may go from one to another 
freely, receiving full credit for work done and without loss of time 
and progress. Such interchange of students is very desirable and 
for many reasons must become more general than it has been in 
the past. 

Finally, more accurate information in regard to our colleges will 
be accessible to foreigners, and a more just rating of them by foreign 
universities to which our students go will be possible, both of which 
ends are to be desired, especially by the smaller colleges whose size 
and wealth are not such as to attract foreign attention but whose 
work may nevertheless be of the highest type. 

These last three results are not to be hoped for immediately, nor 
do I believe they were foreseen clearly enough to be counted as 



12 

reasons for the beginning of this work which the Bureau of Edu- 
cation has undertaken. But that they may grow out of it, if the 
bureau can have for its completion the hearty cooperation of college 
men which it should have, seems quite possible. That it will have 
such cooperation when the nature and purpose of the work are fully 
understood, I firmly believe, for college men are honest, unselfish, 
and reasonable. It is their mission to find and teach the truth and 
their profession to do whatever they can for the good of all the 
people and for the sound advancement of the institutions by which 
the people are served. More than others they know that things are 
as they are and that no profit can come from any kind of deception, 
either of self or of others, that freedom comes from knowing the 
truth, and profit from its fearless and unselfish application. 

The Bureau of Education has no selfish interest in this or any 
other work. It desires only to serve wisely and effectively. Having 
undertaken this task with a more or less full realization of its magni- 
tude and difficulty and some understanding of its importance, it 
believes it would be open to the just accusation of recreancy to duty 
if it did not carry it forward faithfully toward completion. By 
doing this it seems quite certain it may fulfill a part of the high 
function for which it was established, viz, " for the purpose of col- 
lecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and 
progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of 
diffusing such information * * * as shall aid the people of the 
United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient 
schools and school systems and otherwise promote the cause of 
education throughout the country." 

P. P. CliAXTON, 

Commissioner. 



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